


A Tale of Two Lives

by ProustianPeach



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slow Burn, hopelessly romantic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25045546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProustianPeach/pseuds/ProustianPeach
Summary: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.--- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two CitiesOr the tale of Rafa and Roger’s lives through their moments of light and darkness.
Relationships: Roger Federer/Rafael Nadal
Comments: 15
Kudos: 42





	1. Shanghai 2006

**Author's Note:**

> It is my first time posting a work despite years of dribbling in various fandoms as I am a bit desperate to share my passion for this pair. So, I would love any and all feedback. Your every word means a lot to me!
> 
> As much as I try to rigorously research and verify all information, I am a newbie tennis fan so if there are any inaccuracies in the text, please do let me know. I will try my very best to make sure all the events and places are canon-compliant but I reserve some room for creativity when I need it.
> 
> I am writing this as a long collection of distinct moments but there will be a sustained storyline to it, just one that I have not completely fleshed out yet. So, if you want to see any particular progression of events, comment below. I plan for this to be very balanced in its angst to fluff ratio so get tissues ready for crying from both sadness and joy.
> 
> Lastly, this is a work of fiction and should be taken as such. As much as I love these two people, they are real people with real lives and families, and I genuinely hope they never hear a word about this. 
> 
> Enjoy and thanks for reading!

Chapter 1: November, 2006, Shanghai

They first kiss against the shimmering backdrop of the Shanghai night skyline. 

Roger and Rafa are sitting on the balcony of Rafa’s hotel room, overlooking the Bund district in its lustrous nighttime glory. They watch the lights of the world flicker below them --- all the people and their anonymous yet fiercely colourful lives and imaginations. They indulge in a drink, for which they will be severely scolded the next day, but the view is so intoxicating that it would be a shame not to pair it with something. They speak little of the ongoing tournament but drabble in inconsequential pleasantries: the humidity of Shanghai in late autumn, their lives since London, and upcoming plans for Christmas. They have been laughing too, in between the comfortable silences, a languid sort of laughter that continues to bubble even when its original cause has long been forgotten. 

The situation is never intended to be romantic, despite how much it has ironically turned out so. After facing each other six times in one year on the tennis court, Roger and Rafa have developed a sort of unlikely friendship, which consists of meeting for coffee whenever they play the same tournament. There are many compelling narratives to this relationship --- the one of getting-to-know-your-opponent for their teams, the one of rivals-turned-friends for the media, and of course, the one of tennis camaraderie for their rational selves. Yet, none of these aspects, while not false, captures the raison d’être of this peculiar bond --- the unspeakable ease when they are in each other’s company. Whenever they have coffee or the occasional meal, the world seems to recede slightly, no longer constantly prying them open and sapping them of life, and they feel alone and a bit invincible --- a feeling that they thought was confined to the tennis court. So Roger and Rafa have continued this arrangement, or secretly cherished it even, their little private reprieve from the quotidienne, until here at the Master’s Cup, where Rafa’s practice dragged on too late for coffee at the hotel’s bar and Rafa invites Roger to coffee in his room instead. 

So, as the meandering conversation trails off and the last hiccups of laughter dissipate, Roger finds himself studying Rafa’s smile lines --- the ones that gently curve around his lips, forming an indentation that is not quite a dimple but adorable regardless. And suddenly, instead of his eyes, Roger’s lips are now tracing the edges of these lines, trying to find Rafa’s mouth. The briefest contact ensues. If this kiss was a serve, it is probably a let --- one that grazes at the edge and demands a second try. Roger retreats and they look at each other, both a bit incredulous at what he just did. 

Roger realizes, if he is quick, he can play it off as a spur-of-the-moment accident, just another one of the thousands of unfortunate consequences of intoxication. Yet, he does not because he does not believe in accidents. Tennis has taught him that everything he does, no matter how seemingly spontaneous, is the result of a complex and unstoppable link of events. Every shot he makes on the court has been thought of a thousand times before he takes it and the fulfilment of the action is nothing but the last prostration to the hands of fate. So, Roger bides his time as seconds tick by and the window of a retraction slowly closes. He panics a little when Rafa does nothing, just sitting there and looking at him in a very concentrated way, the glistening-eyes and grimacing-brows-sort-of- look that Roger only gets to see in the tiebreaker of a fifth set. Roger panics more when he realizes he has no idea of what he wants Rafa to do --- as the dizzying sense of fateful intuition evaporates, he sees how high up they are, beneath, the world an inescapable labyrinth, and how easily they can break if they teeter on the edge.

That thought dies a premature death when Roger feels Rafa’s lips on his for the second time this night. If the first kiss felt like an electrical pulse when two exposed wires meet, jarring and caustic, this kiss feels like the radiance of the city below is slowly trickling into their bodies, warm and paralyzing. They take their time this time, slowly memorizing each other’s topographies, the elevation of a nose, the valley of a cheek, the curve behind a jaw, and of course, the tender grooves of lips as they fold over each other. In the end, Rafa proves to be more impatient, discontented with mere superficial investigations, he laps his tongue around the inner edges of the Swiss’s lips, asking for more. And Roger finds himself surprisingly giving with Rafa when not on a court. So they continue for what feel like years, decades, centuries, dancing with their mouths and tongues as the lights below them dim and a few stars fall out of the sky.


	2. Shanghai 2006 (2)

Chapter 2: Still Shanghai, November, 2006

They run into each other in the haze of a poorly-lit locker room.

Well, Rafa and Roger do not exactly run into each other since there could be only one other person using the locker room before a match, and that is the person they are playing against. Maybe it is the obscurity of the room that makes it such a surprise but their breaths hitch when they first catch sight of each other’s figures emerging from the shadow, momentarily unable to recall what they came here to do and the fact that there is a match waiting to be played.

Before, they would usually greet each other and exchange some words of mutual well-wish before they go out on the court, but this time, neither speaks. The silence is not the pleasant kind. Instead, it diffuses the air with a biting rancidness, silent in its accusations, and Roger hates it, he misses Rafa’s sunshine smile and that warm accent that curls around the edge of his hellos. Rafa hates it too but does not know how to rectify _it_ \--- this thing that happened, the elephant in the room, that kiss that meant everything and nothing all at once. Everything because how singular it felt, like a point of complete unity and peace between not only them but between Rafa and the universe, where existence, with its explosive possibility, stands still enough to be held gently with a hand down the shoulder blade. Nothing because they have not acknowledged it, let alone defined that cosmic experience for what it is and what it could be.

How they have managed to avoid talking about it is quite miraculous in itself --- they kiss and touch the fabric of space and time, and then Roger leaves with a flustered “I will see you...hmm...soon.” and Rafa inaudibly mutters “yeah, okay” as he closes the door. “Soon” turns out to be exactly four days after, when they are pitted against each other in the final and now the world expects them to put on the rivals show again, cruelly ignorant of how their worlds are left balancing on the edge of that 50th-floor balcony over the Pudong river. Life is a truly artful sadist sometimes. Or maybe life is a sadistic artist, but either way, they are now stuck in it.

Roger has no idea what to say despite ruminating about exactly what to say in this situation for the past four days, but he decides that anything will be preferable to silence right now. So he starts tentatively, the meek uncertainty in his voice echoing back to him, “can we talk after the match?”. Rafa startles out of his trance, one where the sequence of Roger positively escaping his hotel room is in permanent replay and digests the other’s words.

“Yeah, okay.”

During the match, Rafa finds that he cannot focus. Every forehand reminds him of Roger’s hand trembling down his spine, and Rafa decides that this must be over. Either that thing between Roger and him is over before it properly begins, or his career will be. How pitiful and ridiculous that he does not find it such a clear cut choice?

Roger wins the match in straight sets.

And the place can never seem to get the lighting right because the brightness of the stage lights during the award ceremony hurts Rafa’s eyes. As Roger gives his winning speech to roaring fans, Rafa has to endure, endure the harshness of the parabolic reflector lights, endure the confusing tournament between his boiling rage and infinite tenderness for the man who just took away his title. When he tears up, he blames it on the lightning.


	3. Shanghai 2006 (3)

Roger and Rafa don’t talk to each other a lot, they mostly communicate.

Their mutual language is tennis, with its jarring serves and playful lobs and you-are-driving-me-crazy volleys. Off the court, they read bodies, having studied each other’s movements and expressions so much they can decipher the other’s mood in a sorrowful twitch of the brow or an easy slackening of the arms. So while Rafa may not have the firmest grasp of the English language, their conversations have always been affable and effortless. Except for this one, that is. 

It is near two in the morning as they find themselves in the same positions as four days ago, the city view from Rafa's balcony as luminous as ever. The post-match press and the subsequent celebration dragged on endlessly, but neither particularly liked the prospect of having to sleep with this conversation looming for another night. So, here they are, sweaty and scared and stubborn, looking ridiculous as they try futilely to find words, something they never really had to use before. 

“I am sorry that you lost.” Roger decides that this is a familiar enough opening to be safe. He almost blurts out _I am sorry that you lost to me_ but he swallows the last part because it would sound too much like _I am sorry that you lost to me because I hate seeing you suffer and I hate the fact that I was the one who had to inflict it upon you_.

“It’s fine. In tennis, you sometimes lose, no? _”_ Rafa replies, ever so goodnaturedly. 

_But tonight you did not lose due to chance, but because you had to play against me, someone whose mere presence threw you off._ Roger wants to say because he is not blind and he knows Rafa’s game better than anyone. He knows this loss is unwarranted, at least in the way it unfolded. But he does not say so because he does not know if he has the permission to go there yet, to peel back the scad of a scar like that. Instead, he murmurs: “I hope you know that I think you are a great player and you deserve to win, and I hope",here he stumbles, struggling to find his voice, “whatever happened did not rob you of that chance.”

Rafa feels his chest starts to constrict. Roger knows him too well, and he must know why Rafa performed badly tonight, and even worse, might resent Rafa for it, for his weakness, for his inability to stifle his emotions. It is all a bit too much to be this transparent, this _vulnerable_ to someone. 

“I just… It’s just...is hard to focus tonight. _”_ _because I am constantly thinking of how you kissed me and how much I care about what you think of me and that I might be a bit in love with you._ But Rafa decides the first part is as much as he will allow himself to admit out loud.

Roger pretends he does not hear the words that are unspoken but written across every tensed edge of Rafa. His heart quivers and he decides that there is no use in fighting against inevitability anyways. “It was hard for me too. Do you think it will ever be better? So we can play and also do this... _”_ He gestures between them, in a desperate attempt at giving a name to what they have been tiptoeing around.

When Rafa does not respond, looking like the mere question is gnawing him open, Roger realizes that the other has decided that _no, it would not get better_ and that, by extension, what he came to ask tonight has already been refused. Heartache actually radiates from the bottom of the abdomen first, waves of nausea more unbearable than the pain, Roger remarks. When it rises to his throat, he decides that he will say the words he came here to say, even if it takes his last breath - he is known for a fighting spirit. So he declares, with a single determined breath of someone suffocating:

“I have no idea where this will go … or how I can make it better...but I would like to see you again, like, off the court” Roger chuckles at the clarification but his tone is grave. “When you kissed me, or I guess, when I kissed you … it was so lovely and correct and completing and I just thought, well, I _know_ that it can’t be the last time.” 

As these words leave his body, Roger feels utter relief and thorough exhaustion and in a tiny corner of his heart, a small fluttering of hope. He has to strain his eyes to look at Rafa’s face, fearing whatever is on it will obliterate that fragile creature of hope. And god does Rafa look devastated --- like when he cramps up during matches and has to fight his own body to will it to do something it protests against. Roger braces himself to hear the word “no” but instead he hears “what about Mirka?”, and a breath he did not realize he was holding escapes. 

This is a question Roger knows the answer to, something tangible that he can offer Rafa among this sea of uncertainty that threatens to crush them both:” I called her four nights ago and we are over.” 

Rafa’s eyes widen in response, inside, there is pain and anger and confusion but if one looks carefully enough, one can see a glint of something feverish and crazed and almost wanton with love. He knows how much Roger cares about Mirka, even as their relationship becomes more distant, and the implication of this decision unfurls itself out across the nighttime sky: Roger is serious about trying. And that realization feels like it might swallow Rafa whole. 

Roger can read Rafa’s string of questions in his incredulous and beautiful brown eyes, and he almost laughs, if it isn’t for the fact that he is crying and it would have made an unsightly combination. He decides that _screw it, might as well spell it out for him_ , “yes, I knew I wanted this, _you_ , as soon as we kissed, and no, it does not oblige you to say yes. I don’t think I could stay with Mirka even if you do not agree anyways… I mean, it is a bit awful to be in love with someone else.” 

Before Roger’s words, in all of its sentimental gravity, can land properly, Rafa’s response comes in the form of a swift tackle that jolts them both out of their chairs and onto the plush carpet. There, Rafa frantically tries to reseal the gap between them, the one that has ached nondescriptly since they separated on Monday. Roger, being something of an athlete himself, quickly catches on to the goal, and guides Rafa’s lips and hands and body toward his until they could melt into each other. In the twilight spaces between the fever of the entanglement and the tenderness of the kissing, Roger wonders if Aristophanes’s cliché has a point after all --- maybe people are born conjoined and it takes finding the other for both to feel complete again.

And the best part is, they have the rest of the day to revel in this contemplation. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was immensely difficult to write because I was trying so hard to balance psychological description with natural dialogue with plot progression. As you can probably tell, this is also where I started taking a little more liberties with canon events, since Rafa did not play horribly in Shanghai at all. But something has to give to build up the stakes of the relationship, you know? 
> 
> Please do be generous with your feedback! Tell me about anything that worked or did not work! Without your lovely comments, it can sometimes feel like I am groping in the dark. And as always, I hope you have enjoyed this chapter, especially given how instrumental the start of a relationship is!


	4. Palma de Mallorca 2007

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger and Rafa go to Rafa's home island to play in an exhibition match.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short and sweet, and genuinely such a joy to write! I love writing about destinations and cuisines so I've incorporated them here. I think the rest of this fiction will also be location-based.
> 
> I do hope you soak up the sweetness as much as you can in the next few chapters ;)

**Palma de Mallorca, May 2007**

Roger has never seen sunshine as brilliant as Palma’s sunshine. 

It is an all-illuminating sort of light, bestowing every object under its glory with a glittering vivacity that borders on the surreal. Even through his sunglasses, the cerulean opaqueness of the Mediterranean sea leaps into Roger’s eyes with careless abandon, almost overwhelming him with its crystalline intensity. So Roger turns his gaze towards the man lying beside him, so languorously stretched out in the sand that his skin seems to blend into the honey-coloured grains. As he watches Rafa turns on his back mid-nap, golden rays delineating every border of every muscle, Roger decides that the sun here is indeed bewitching because Rafa looks a bit like a deity right now. And every fiber of Roger’s body yearns to worship at his feet. 

When Rafa wakes up, they hike up to a secluded edge of the Calanques to picnic. Rafa is responsible for the contents of their dinner, insistent on showing Roger the cuisine of his home island. Roger hides a bemused smile as Rafa busies himself with presenting what seems to be an endless stream of aperitifs: four different types of Mallorcan sausage (while declaring the Sobrasada is his favourite), panceda olives, queso de máhon, squid croquettes, and of course, a Manto Negro wine. 

Finally noticing Roger’s lack of attention to his impassioned explanation of the food, Rafa feigns annoyance while pouring wine into their empty water bottles like it is not a slightly ridiculous thing to do at all.

”Hey, you try some, is very good, no?” He hands Roger his bottle, filled with cherry-tinted liquid.

Roger swirls the wine in the bottle before he sips, channelling a sommelier just to tease the Spaniard a little more while remarking in a dramatic tone:” hmmm, what a fabulous combination of herbaceous and piquant notes, with a touch of that creosote aftertone!”

As Rafa struggles to contain his grin, he internally laments how horrible the Swiss is at acting and how charmingly unaware he is of such a fact. Yet it makes it impossibly hard to stay mad at him, so Rafa prays to whoever is up there that his rival will never use dramatic antics against him on the court.

“To me, is sweet, very sweet.” It is clear that Rafa does not understand any of Roger’s descriptions nor does he want to give the other the satisfaction of asking. 

Roger is distracted again, sometimes his soul just leaves his body for a bit to hover over the scene. It happens a lot when he is with Rafa, but even more frequently on this trip. Now, he sees Rafa sitting in front of him, with that impossibly lovable boyish grin and a gaze of tender indulgence poorly disguised in displeasure. Behind Rafa, he sees the sun setting, which appears to gingerly dip itself in the ocean as the sky is the same shade of azure as the water below it. And he thinks about the island he is sitting on, the warm earth that cradled a young Rafa, who grew up on a diet of olives and cheeses and clay courts. He thinks about how Rafa has brought him here, exuding pride and earnest hope as he shares with him everything about his home and his culture, the things that made who he is today. He thinks about how Rafa invites him to stay at his home and parades him around his family, who are all as outrageously joyous as Rafa is and maybe a little bit in love with Roger as well. 

And Roger thinks he could go on thinking like this, or maybe just stop thinking forever, locking his mind in this moment. He does not care much either way. But he snaps out of his daze when Rafa nudges him, looking slightly concerned. 

“Sorry, what did you say again?” 

“Said that the wine is sweet, no?”

“Yes, it is very sweet.” 

_ And it is all very sweet indeed. _ Roger thinks to himself.


	5. Palma de Mallorca, May 2007 (2)

It is a ridiculously preposterous idea. To have the world’s greatest players on grass and clay to play on a court made of both surfaces. Something Robbie Knoeig would scream “oh stop it” at. 

So Rafa does not know which fact is more unbelievable, the fact that he and Roger are standing on a court half made out of grass and half made out of clay in the Palma Arena, or the fact that they are standing there _holding hands_. 

There are no fans and no media, of course. This is their private viewing of this one-of-a-kind court, _their court_ , the night before their exhibition match here. There are absolutely no stakes, no points nor prizes, for this match, yet Rafa feels light-headed. Maybe it is the surrealism of a court that looks like it came straight out of photoshop or it is the fact that this is the first time that they held hands in public, even when there is no one around to witness such a moment, Rafa finds that he has to plant his heels on the clay a little harder, feeling like he could float away if he didn’t. 

The hand-holding has been completely spontaneous, Roger’s fingers unconsciously searching for Rafa’s when they entered the arena, both silently marvelling at the view before them. Yet somehow it also feels destined and natural, Roger finding Rafa’s palm without turning away from the stadium like he knew it would be there, and it will always be there. 

It is a risky move, even when their complete privacy has been unequivocally guaranteed by the organizer. Someone could see something and it might all come crashing down on them. Yet, seeing the two surfaces that claim so much of their individual identities conjoined in perfect symmetry, two things that were considered irreconcilable unified, the moment felt so symbolic that it would be morally reprehensible not to hold hands. So they do, as they stand in wordless reveries of their own. Two feet apart and only joined by their loosely intertwined hands, Roger and Rafa have never felt so intimate with one another, like their heartbeats are syncing through their palmar arches. 

When they return to Rafa’s family home in Manacor, an hour outside of Palma, their breaths still feel shallow, like they just finished a relentless match. Rafa’s family is still out in the backyard, drinking their post-dinner tintos and laughing in a symphonious chime. They purposefully leave a bit too much distance between them, acting like two guilty teenagers afraid that their families are going to find out what they snuck out to do. Well, in a way, they are. Since Roger is introduced as a good friend and nothing more. However, in the way that Ana embraces Roger with a warmth that is extraordinary for even Mallorcans and Maribel throws Rafa the mischievous knowing look whenever Roger is looking away, Rafa is not sure how much his family is truly convinced by the narrative. 

Well, he will deal with it later.

In fact, there is so much about their nascent relationship that needs to be dealt with, _later_. 

Although it has only been six months since Shanghai, it is one of those life changes that are so seismic that it bends the fabric of space and time a little bit, and everything that happened before then felt like it belonged to an unrecognizable era. From the moment Roger first laid his mouth on Rafa’s, or maybe even the hour before, when they looked at each other and saw nothing but their reflections beaming back at them among the glittering city lights, it has been a new life for both of them. A life in the uncharted open sea, where promises of breathtaking sunrises and murderous storms are equally likely to come true, and the existential danger only adds to the intensity of the sublime. 

Every time one of them tries to initiate the conversation about their future: how will they tell their families, and more impossibly, the public? how can they go on playing tennis as rivals? or will they even be able to continue to play tennis again, if everyone knows? It feels like they are not raising a question about their future, but rather questioning whether there _will be_ the possibility of a shared future in the first place. Yet these questions weigh so crushingly against their carefully constructed shell of invincibility that it feels like their whole universe might crumble into quantum particles. Rafa knows that he is being irresponsible and cowardly, yet, being nineteen and in love with _the_ Roger Federer, he just wants to prolong the moment for a bit longer, even if it means delaying fate’s hand by just a few days or months, it might be all worth the heartbreak at the end. And who can blame him?

That night, when Rafa tosses and turns in his childhood bedroom, where Moya’s posters and that signed photo with Ronaldo still hang triumphantly on the wall, he receives a text. 

“Are you asleep yet?” 

Rafa smiles, imagining how Roger is, in the guest bedroom, tossing and turning just like him. The phone quickly buzzes again. 

“I miss you” 

It is sappy and ridiculous and they only separated an hour ago but against the scorn of his own logic, Rafa cannot help but agree. 

“Me too”

“Goodnight” He adds after searching for and failing to find something that will better alleviate the soreness of the other’s absence, even if said person is only down the hall from where he is.

Rafa puts his forehead against the phone and closes his eyes. Against the penetratingly reflective darkness of the screen, he does not need to look to imagine how pitifully lovestruck he looks right now. Then, he hears a slight creak of the floorboard a few steps outside of his door, so faint that he nearly thinks he willed it into existence. Yet, somehow he knows that this is not a phantom of his imagination, and walks toward the door, fingers trembling a little. 

When he opens the door and sees Roger standing outside, wearing pyjamas and a childlike unimpeachable expression, Rafa is not sure if he wants to laugh or cry. So they end up on Rafa’s bed, both shaking a little from how much they are trying to suppress their giggles and not look at each other as one glance could incite another fit of laughter. A career as intense and trying as professional tennis has made both players forget that they are still young, and it is moments like this, with each other, that remind them of that fact. 

When Roger and Rafa finally regain enough sobriety to formulate words and thoughts again, they whisper to each other, knowing how thin the walls in a 19th-century building can be. 

“Not funny. What if my family hears us?” Rafa pouts but fails to put any hint of condemnation in his tone.

“Oh, but you started laughing first Mr. Nadal.” Roger pokes at Rafa’s biceps like he doesn’t know it is akin to a solid wall. 

“And I didn’t come here to be funny anyways.” Roger props himself up and hovers above Rafa’s body, aligning their faces to catch his gaze, knowing perfectly Rafa can read the mix of mischief and fondness in his eyes, even in the dark.

If Rafa’s slowly reddening face is any indication, he does understand perfectly. “Have to get to be kidding me. We can’t!” Rafa’s voice is a blend of embarrassment and exasperation and a little bit of actual anxiety. 

Roger does not know which commentator Rafa’s got this expression from and does not care much to correct him either, he is too busy trying not to giggle again and making a mental note to add gullibility to his long list of favourite Rafa traits. 

“Fine, I am not serious. I can’t have sex with you as a life-sized Moya stares at us from the wall anyways. Geez.” Roger finally relents on the teasing. “I came here because I missed you and I just couldn’t stand lying there, knowing you are in the same house, yet not next to me.” There is only soft forlorn left in Roger’s tone now, as he mindlessly traces his fingers around Rafa’s back, pretending that these words are unextraordinary. 

But they both know how extraordinary, and honest, these words are. 

Rafa sighs inaudibly and pulls Roger closer to his body. The past six months have been hard, their relentless schedules dictating the terms of their relationship. If they played in the same tournament and got lucky, they’d steal a week or two together in the twilight hours of anonymous hotel rooms. And when they are not together, the dull ache of separation is almost as constant and penetrating as the pain in Rafa’s foot, perhaps both a bit congenital. And as much as they don’t ever admit it, they know that it will be this hard for the foreseeable future. 

“Should try to sleep. Special match tomorrow, hmm?” Rafa knows this is not the answer Roger wants but sees no way out of this without everything coming undone, so he chooses to burrow his head in the sand. As a perhaps consolatory gesture, Rafa reaches out and finds Roger’s hand. He holds it a bit too tightly for it to be comfortable but this is his way of saying _I am sorry that love is hurtful and I can’t make it hurt less_. 

So they lie there, hand in hand, eyes closed but refusing to sleep because there are no dreams that can surpass the reality in this moment anyways. 


	6. Palma de Mallorca, May 2007 (3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rafa wins the Battle of the Surfaces   
> (aka. a love letter to Rafael Nadal)

There is an indescribable magic in seeing Rafa on a tennis court, Roger thinks. 

When Roger recalls Rafa, he thinks of Rafa in the locker room before a match, bright and boiling with anticipation; he thinks of Rafa at the end of a match, spent but beaming with friendship as he goes in for a half-hug; and more recently, he thinks of Rafa before he drifts into sleep, mumbling sweet nothings as the conversation abates and curling up against Roger’s edges; and he thinks of Rafa as he wakes up, slightly dazed but unfailingly cheerful to meet the day. 

Yet, for being his biggest tennis rival, Roger’s impressions of Rafa on the court are shamefully sparse and colourless. As much as Roger hates to admit it, blocking out Rafa’s brilliance as a player is a necessary defense mechanism, one that allows him to mentally separate the man he kissed the morning of the match, and the opponent he needs to annihilate during the match. On the court, Roger’s eyes can only focus on the ball, its unpredictable orbit and strategic destination, and his mind fixates on the calculations of winning, leaving no room for his competitor. 

Usually, this carefully demarcated dichotomy works --- Roger can play against Rafa the way he usually does and the world is none the wiser. Yet, it is on days like this, when Roger allows himself to fully immerse in the experience of watching his greatest rival, that he acknowledges how regretful this sacrifice is. 

It is the start of their exhibition match, and the air already feels inflammable. Rafa is standing cross-court from him, sweat gleaming, brows furling and radiating fierce concentration as he waits for Roger to serve. And when Roger does, sending a wide shot to his backhand, Rafa leaps at the ball with an almost primal ferocity, reminiscent of a leopard’s self-assured boldness when it attacks its dinner. Yet, when he strikes the ball, time slows and it is almost artistic, the pleasing curve of his swing as he sends the ball into a precise trajectory, twirling rapidly through the air yet never one step out of control. Roger tries to return the ball, realizing too late that he has been hypnotized, so it slams into its fate on the net. The crowd is in a complete uproar now, a thunderous mix of clapping and screaming, and Roger finds that he does not mind at all. In fact, he desperately wishes to be a part of this crowd, to experience the match the way they do, eyes feasting on Rafa’s artistry and lips trembling with the fever of Rafa’s name. 

Rafa’s intensity is probably what he likes the most about his rival’s game, Roger decides in between two sets. No, more than like, Roger is completely captivated by it --- the currents of nuclear energy Rafa brings to every match, raw and ready to set the world on fire at any moment. Roger has seen plenty of intense before, from sheer physical power to unbreakable mental stamina, but then there is Rafael-Nadal-intense, where the universe seems to narrow to a single point of creative energy, and he holds it in his racquet.

As Rafa holds his racquet tonight, with that trademark look of gritty determination infused with vivacious excitement, he reminds Roger of first seeing the seventeen-year-old kid through the dampness of the Miami air. That night in 2004 forever etched into his memory: before Rafa became synonymous with the word rival when Roger could truly appreciate a game with him without meticulous plans of attack nor expectations of titles or crowns, just something to relish in the moment. It was during this game that Roger truly saw Rafa, not only his talent and drive but his fundamental goodness, seen in the innocent warmth in eyes and the humble sincerity with which he apologized for winning. Roger did not know it back then, but it was a moral clarity that makes the world feel a bit more bearable to live in and makes the humid air a bit easier to breathe. If he is truly honest, maybe this is when Roger first falls a little bit in love with him too. 

Rafa wins, although the third-set tie-breaker seemed to go on forever, enrapturing the audience in prayerful suspense. Roger likes to know that he knew and almost wanted, in another level of consciousness, Rafa would win, despite the fact that he would never allow himself to think that. And Roger is genuinely elated for Rafa, who is beaming at a hysterical home crowd, and basking in its furor. There is no win that surpasses a win in your home court --- you feel like you might burst open with an entire people’s worship and adoration. A feeling that Roger has had the privilege to get to know a few times.

If it takes him losing to give Rafa a taste of this divine experience, Roger finds that he does not hate losing that much. 

So when they go to meet at the net, Roger tells him as much through his eyes, wet with pride and joy. 


	7. Wimbledon, July 2008

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rafa and Roger find each other at the beginning of Wimbledon 2008.

**Chapter 7:** Wimbledon, July 2008.

London in July just might be Roger’s favourite place to be, and it is not only because he remains undefeated here. 

There’s something about the generosity of the summer sun, the peaceful quaintness of the Wimbledon village, and the glorious greenness of freshly cut grass, that gives Roger a reprieve, a breath of tender renewal. Or maybe it is also because London in July means that the clay season is behind him now. No more kicking up dust in the sweltering heat, no more the chaos of Rome and Madrid and Paris, and no more Rafa destroying him, wearing him down to the bone, in every match that they play, until he looks at himself in the locker room mirror and cannot recognize any hint of hope in his eyes. 

When Roger opens the door to Rafa’s rental, he tries to put these memories out of his mind. And Rafa makes it easy because he smiles that stupefyingly gorgeous smile, full-toothed and eyes-crinkled, when he sees Roger. Then, they are kissing, a sequence that almost feels familiar now, after two years of opening doors to find each other on the other side. 

They kiss hungrily until the kitchen, and Rafa goes to turn off the oven but does not bother to check the food inside. 

They kiss clumsily on the sofa, and Roger fishes for his phone to silence it, he cannot be interrupted for the next twelve hours or so.

They kiss gently down the hallway, and Roger manages to untie Rafa’s apron, taking his shirt with it as he lifts the garment off of his head, and hangs them haphazardly on a coat hanger.

They kiss and stumble into the bed, and Rafa manages to tell Roger how much he has missed the other in completely incoherent phrases, but Roger understands them anyway. 

They kiss a bit too fervently for it to be considered proper kissing anymore, more like wanton, open-mouthed licks and bites that betray a sense of possessiveness too damning to be spoken out loud.

They kiss when they come together, heartbeats in sync, and Roger thinks about how weird it is, to expose one’s jugular veins and hold out one’s heart as if the other is incapable of biting into them, to be so intertwined that the skin melts into skin and the boundaries between the self and the other cease to exist.

When they take breaks from kissing in the afterglow, Rafa huffs out a not-quite sigh, like something light yet unbearable has been lifted off of him: “Have been long, no?” 

“Yeah” Roger agrees. “I haven’t seen you since…”, he pauses because Roland Garros is on his tongue and they still sting, “last month” he finishes, voice a bit weaker than before.

The instant these words leave his month, Roger catches a fleeting expression on Rafa’s face, one of empathetic grief, and he knows Rafa is sad for him, maybe for their relationship as a whole, because this is what they have to do to each other --- inflict damage and kiss the wounds. 

Roger almost hates Rafa for it, for that awful expression that acknowledges something that Roger has intended to forget, for feeling pain because of Roger’s pain. Sometimes he wishes they did not understand each other so well, and they could be one of those totally oblivious couples who scream ridiculous accusations when fighting and remain naively confident when making up because of how little knowledge they have of each other’s interiorities. That way, maybe he could pretend like this relationship is not ridiculous and punishing, and they will both believe it, together. But he and Rafa do not have the luxury of that imagination. They read each other so naturally and thoroughly that every emotion, every thought is confessed, regardless of if they wanted to or not. 

A gust of night breeze enters through the open window and the room suddenly feels a lot chiller.

Roger clings a bit more to Rafa, who is all heat even when the climate is cold. Rafa changes the topic:” So, Soderling tomorrow, huh?”, with a tone that is a mix of mischievous teasing and genuine sympathy.

“Yeah, hate that guy, don’t we?” Roger is all too glad to take the bait of easy banter, even if it comes at his own expense. “What about I send him away in straight sets, hmm?” he props himself up on the side, eyes gleaming and searching for praise from the man lying beside him.

Rafa gives a half-amused smile: “maybe better to give him a set and destroy him fifth-round, no?”

Roger chuckles out loud this time, jokingly accusing: “you are, what is it that you say, el diablo!”

Seeing Rafa’s half-smile stretch into a full one, and feeling validated and airy, Roger continues:”I also know that Gulbis you are playing is a serious bookworm, so maybe you can bring him a copy of Cortázar or Borges and he will be too distracted to play!”

Rafa has never told Roger who he is playing but of course, he knows. He is curious about the level of detail Roger seems to hold on his opponent:” How you know that?”

Roger replies: ”Well, I see him reading in the locker room often. And his parents named him after Ernest Hemingway, seems obvious.”

Rafa pouts, only half-teasingly sour :” so you look at guys in locker room?”

Roger laughs heartily, a laugh that Rafa wants to bottle up and cork in, let it age to savour forever. If,  _ if _ , or maybe  _ when _ this ends, Rafa will take out this bottle and say  _ here, we had this _ . 

Roger nips at Rafa’s shoulder and quirks up his eyebrow in a terrible impression of Rafa: “so you never look at the other guys? ”

Rafa shakes his head determinedly, as if he is defending his reputation in front of a press room. 

Roger tries to sound unconvinced but genuine pleasure seeps through his voice: “not even Feli? Chardy? Or Grigor?”

Rafa refuses to let up so Roger continues, running down a list of guys Rafa associates with on tour:”Lopéz, Veradesco, Ferrer?”

“Okay, you name all Spanish players now, ” Rafa retorts, face earnest, “we are just friendly because we know same language!”

He sighs softly and starts again, voice low and gentle: ”and I was always looking at you, no time for other guys, no?” 

And this is enough to silence Roger because he knows that Rafa has always only looked at him. In fact, he has known since the first day he saw Rafa in Indian Wells, two months before their fateful first match. It was unremarkable at first, since he was world number one and meant to be looked at, and another young, impressionable kid’s reverent gaze towards him was expected, if not clichè. Yet, there was something in that gaze, fiery and genuine and full of blinding idealism that Roger once thought could only be the trademark of youthful navieté, that made Roger’s heart hitch a bit. Roger invited him to sit in his box as he played his match, not quite sure why he did so but knew that something about knowing that this kid’s eyes on his back make him feel so firmly supported that he becomes a little untouchable.

Roger starts kissing Rafa again, not rushed but needy, punctuated with an insistent longing, and what Rafa hears is “ _me too_ ”. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My ending line of "me too", as well as a lot of the rudimentary premise of the angst in this fic, are inspired by Eliane's amazing fedal fics. Seriously, read this writer's fictions if you enjoy fedal, they are absolutely another level of beauty. I owe so much of my inspiration to their works and will link their specific fics later on as well, as credit.
> 
> I hope you guys had your fill for your sweet-tooth because we are about to drive into angst town for a while. So, buckle up! 
> 
> And as always, your comments light up my day!


	8. Wimbledon, July 2008 (2)

Rafa is angry. 

Okay, maybe not exactly angry, because he has worked so hard to banish that feeling for the better half of his childhood, Toni’s stern voice always ringing in his head: “la ira hace perdedores”.

But Rafa is definitely irate, like every part of his skin is tickling with an itch that refuses to be scratched. He paces around the room, trying to calm his breathing, but the walking just makes him feel even hotter and stickier, incinerating from within.

So he resigns to sitting on his bed, trying to imagine the rhythmic crashing of Mediterranean ocean waves, an ageless constancy beyond the whims of the human world. What he hears instead is Roger’s bashful voice, twinged with apprehension and regret, when he says:”I don’t think we should see each other before a match”. 

His left knee throbs inopportunely, sending a sharp jolt of pain to his lower spinal cord, and Rafa curses under his breath. Nothing seems to have gone wrong since the beginning of Wimbledon, both Rafa and Roger have performed satisfactorily, or even extraordinarily, coming all the way to a final. Yet nothing seems to have gone right either. For one, Rafa’s knee pain returned, compounding to the perpetual ache in his foot, and he is almost sure that he will need an anaesthetic shot before the game tomorrow. Yet, he does not particularly want to tell his team, which will make an anxious fuss and tape his knee until he feels like blood can no longer circulate through his body. He does not want a thousand pairs of hands on his body at the same time --- checking his nerves and muscles and tendons like he is a race stallion waiting to be sold. What he does want, is an ice bath, and one specific pair of hand on him, cooling when his body burns and inflaming when he yearns, but bringing ecstatic relief to wherever it touches. 

Rafa grits his teeth and swears a bit more audibly this time. He finds his phone and scrolls through his recently called list, locating the number for Maymo. Yet his eye catches on the number below it, labelled “Rogi” sans last name and glowing seductively. It is a true battle of the conscience now: good versus evil, happiness versus despair, salvation versus sin. He wills his fingers to scroll back to his physio’s number but they stay put, gripping more tightly than they do the racquet. 

He closes his eyes and presses the call button, a little curved green icon that contains a lot more hope than its appearance suggests. 

The line connects and Rafa’s heartbeat matches its beeping. 

_Beep, beep, beep_ …

It takes a while, long enough that Rafa is ready to hear Roger’s voicemail, but it is his live voice that greets him. 

“Hey.” Roger says. He sounds casual and at ease, a hint of residual laughter still in his voice, but Rafa instantly remarks the distinct lack of his name.

“Hi Rogi.” Rafa emphasises his name, a little more bitingly than he has intended to. 

“Listen” Roger’s voice is tauter now, picking up on the tension. The murmur of people’s voices in the background seeps through the pause. “I am having lunch right now.”

“Should not call, I know” Rafa panics a little, the courage of the impulse deflating second by second, leaving him stranded with a soup of English words in his head and no idea what to say. 

“It’s okay, what is it?” Roger almost whispers, and Rafa hears him say “excuse me” as the voices in the background become more distant.

Rafa curses the English language again because he, for the life of him, cannot remember how to say the word “knee”. So he buys himself a little more time: “Who you eat with?”

It is Roger’s turn to be silent now, and when he speaks, his voice is tentative, stripped of its natural confidence. “Mirka”

Rafa genuinely thinks he has heard wrong, something lost in translation, and he fires back instinctively:”¿Qué?”

Roger does not repeat the name but offers, in a resigned tone that sounds like a sigh:” She is a good friend and we need to be seen together sometimes.”, the word “need” articulated like a final judgement. 

The silence on the other end is deafening so Roger adds defensively: ”we talked about this”.

Right, Rafa thought, we _did_ talk about this. 

Well, if Rafa was a less generous person, he could say that Roger talked _at him_ about this.

It was around last year’s Christmas, at the tail end of their week-long vacation in Velassaru and after Roger ordered room service for both of them because they could not be bothered by going to the restaurant after a long day spent out on the ocean, Rafa fishing and Roger watching Rafa fish. Roger had asked for the mahi-mahis they caught to be cooked in a Salmoriglio Sauce, Rafa’s favourite, and Rafa watched him on the phone, side profile illuminated by the warm glow of a bedside lamp. That night, and their entire vacation, had felt so private and safe, an impenetrable bubble of eternal happiness, that Rafa felt sure that nothing could ever hurt him ever again. 

Then Roger hung up the phone, stared into the creases on their pillows, and finally looked up at Rafa: 

“There’s something we should talk about.”

Before Rafa could respond, Roger went on: “my team wants us to have a plan”. 

Witnessing the dazed look on Rafa’s face, Roger added: “about how this all would work”, gesturing in a circle, as if it explained something. 

“Is working now, no?” Rafa was just as confused as before, brows gathering. 

Roger looked pained, and Rafa could hear the crisp sound of his bubble bursting. 

For his part, Roger persisted: “there are rumours about us, Rafa, so we’d have to be careful now, in the future. Tony thinks we should try to avoid non-official appearances together, rearrange our schedules, and it would be nice to…”

Roger realized he was mumbling now so he strained to make the words audible:” it would be nice to have someone, whom we can build a media narrative with”, realizing he is literally quoting the technical jargon of his PR, Roger clarified:” you know, a girl to be photographed with, someone whom we can trust.”

Roger watched on helplessly as comprehension unfurled itself across Rafa’s face. Rafa might have the world’s largest reservoir of innocence, always surprising Roger in its abundance, yet several years on tour have drained it enough for Rafa to understand what Roger was referring to. 

Roger was embracing himself for a retort, a vicious fight, where Rafa would shout at him about how unfair and ridiculous this whole arrangement is and resolutely declare that they forget about it entirely. Yet, to Roger’s incomprehension, Rafa said nothing, only carefully searched Roger’s eyes with an intensity that he wants to look away from but cannot, as if to look for confirmation to an unwritten question. He does not know it yet, but Rafa’s self-control and deliberate stoicism, even at this tender age, will continue to awe and punish Roger for the years to come.

Tell me, Rafa thinks, tell me if this is what you want and I will do it. 

Apparently having found the answer he was looking for, Rafa said:”Okay. I will talk to my people.” 

The truth is, his team had been lecturing and sometimes begging, sometimes ordering him on the same subject for a year now, yet he had always stood his ground because he would rather take the risk of exposure than to live in a lie. But this was different, this was Roger’s request, one that he had decided a long time ago not to deny, whenever it would come up. 

Roger was not sure if he was relieved or disappointed by the swiftness with which Rafa agreed. Maybe a little bit of both. So it was settled. This mutually beneficial arrangement, where they could maintain both their relationship and their career, with the help of a savvy media team and willing girl-friends. Win-win. 

Yet none of them felt much like winners, but two people who were too exhausted by the tides of the ocean to even stomach dinner, when the room service eventually arrived.

“Rafa… Raf?” Roger interrupts Rafa’s revelry, panic causing him to forget that he has been carefully avoiding saying his boyfriend’s name in public. 

Rafa is suddenly overcome with an overwhelming sense of resentment, at Mirka for being able to have lunch with Roger in public, at Roger for not being here when he is hurting, at himself for having agreed to such an arrangement in the first place. It is like recalling the conversation also released a wave of repressed anger that never had the chance to break when it needed to and now is building up to a tsunami of violence. Nothing has ever made him feel this way, losing in grand slam finals has come close in its intensity but qualitatively different in the level of penetrativeness. This is entirely uncharted territory for Rafa--- the heartbreak of first love, and he does not know what to do with it.

“Okay, I not bother you anymore.” Rafa tries hard to keep his tone cold and even but the quivers at the edge of his voice betray his heated indignation. He is inexperienced at this, after all. 

“It’s fine” Roger hates that he cannot see Rafa right now. His unfailingly expressive body language and facial expressions are the landlines of understanding when their words fail. And judging by the harsh turn of Rafa’s phrase and his increasingly heavy accent, words are failing big time right now. Roger tries again delicately:”what is it, Raf? Why did you call me?”, praying that the radio waves will transmit his tone of acquiescence. 

Just as Roger’s question lands in Rafa’s ear, Rafa’s left knee cramps up hard, muscles burning and nerves jumping, slyly reminding him of the original reason for the call. Rafa takes in a sharp breath, hoping that the cramp will go away so he can speak again, even if he might not say nice words. Yet the cramp persists as if taunting him: even when away from the court, his body is failing him at crucial moments, taking away his fight.

People are now staring at Roger, a sulky shadow standing in the corridor to the bathroom. He needs to get back to Mirka because the media that is supposed to snap photos of their loving lunch will soon write about Mirka dining alone after Roger ditching her, and isn’t that going to launch a thousand ships? Roger is getting increasingly worried and impatient, and these two emotions mix like gasoline and oxygen. He decides, out of principle, he will count to ten but he cheats and adds on three more seconds in the end.

Still, absolute silence on the other end. 

_Okay_. Roger inhales deeply and he smells second-hand smoke from some asshole smoking in the bathroom. “I have to go now” Roger’s wintry tone is significantly more convincing than Rafa’s, a product of five more years of practice.

“Call me back, okay?” Yet, here, a sliver of desperation slips through.

He considers saying “I love you”, like they always do at the end of calls, but the line goes dead before he can, and he clutches his phone so tight that the smooth plastic case cracks into a spiderweb of scars. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry :(. If it makes you feel better, it hurts me too.


	9. Wimbledon, July 2008 (3)

The words “game, set, match, Nadal” echo in Rafa’s eardrums like a holy chant. Yet he cannot decide if it is a heavenly blessing and a divine condemnation. Regardless, it is deliverance. 

Deliverance to an all-encompassing power, a surrender into a predetermined course. 

The match he just played with Roger, or against Federer, has been the most challenging match he has ever played in his career, and not just because they always brought out the highest levels of tennis in each other. After two years, or maybe more accurately, what feels like a lifetime together, Rafa thought he had figured it out --- the whole competing against your biggest rival who happens to be your lover ordeal. Yet, this time felt different, maybe it is the unprecedented stakes of this final or maybe it is their unresolved fight before the game that instilled every second with a dangerous combustibility, every point a crystal-like tension. Rafa knew, win or lose, this game is not strictly between Federer and Nadal, the greatest rivals of tennis, but between Roger and Rafa, two men exhausted by love, the love they feel for each other, and need something to give. And now, having won, he is not sure if this means Roger gave or he will be giving. 

So he tries to act his part in this pre-scripted play, letting his natural instincts take over his actions. He smiles, cries tears of joy, kisses the grassy grounds, stretches out his hands in a resolute posture of victory, and then he sees Roger on the other side, expression unreadable against the setting sun. Rafa gets a better picture of his expression when he goes to the net, thousands of thoughts on what to do now coursing through his mind yet failing to catch any of them. The chaotic race of thoughts stops when he sees Roger’s eyes, the same shade of wetness of the night of Battle of the Surfaces a year ago, except that time it was out of joy and this time, it is anything but. Rafa’s consciousness reminds him to say something, something polite and appropriate, something a sympathetic rival would offer as a token of goodwill, but he decides that he has fought all afternoon, all of his life, and he can stop fighting himself for a little bit. So, he puts his forehead against Roger’s, eyes closed and one hand finding his chest, and shuts out the dizziness of the earth spinning beneath them for a second. This, Rafa thinks,  _ this _ is good and natural and what every filament in his body yearns to do, not some civil gesture for an opponent, but to hold the person he loves, who is in tears, in his arms.

Then suddenly Roger withdraws, body rigid and eyes avoiding Rafa’s, and goes to shake hands with the umpire. The moment is gone and the world resumes. Rafa goes back to being the triumphant conqueror who dethroned the king, basking in the coronation of the crowd. Roger, well, goes back to the sulky shadow of the defeated, where gracious smiles cannot hide the forlorn underneath the eyes. And the tennis match they played becomes one of the greatest, if not the greatest, game in the sport’s history. But what the roaring fans and the commentators don’t see is that Rafa and Roger will not return to Rafa and Roger again, for a while at least, if not forever. 

Rafa fears as much when he does not see Roger in the locker room, nor after the pressers are finally over. He has not spoken to Roger since their disastrous call the day before, and a bitter concoction of pride, jealousy and shame prevented him from calling Roger back to explain what happened. Now, after taking a trophy that is the heart and soul of Roger, he wonders if he has missed his chance. 

His team wants, deservedly so, a sleepless celebration and Rafa’s presence there asap, so he steals the last bit of time in the car and texts Roger a string of questions, rapid and desperate: 

“How are you? When you leaving? We talk tomorrow?”

He bites his lips as he watches Piccadilly, in its array of colours, passes by him. The real world feels strangely far away through the tinted window. He adds:

“Please”

Rafa half laughs and half sighs to himself as he does so, imagining how the past Rafa will accuse him of insanity for begging. When he was thirteen, or maybe fourteen, he swore to himself that he would never beg for anything in his life, he would get what he wants the righteous, honourable, champion-like way --- by working so hard that other people could not deny him of what he deserves. Yet, that gritty teenage boy, even with all of his precociousness, could not have known that there is a game in this world, where all the points are unfairly and unconditionally held the hands of a single person, and even worse, that he is the one who voluntarily surrendered them to him, and would do it again, on his knees, if asked. 

And Rafa thinks he is currently losing that game.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roger feels sort of numb, like when he has a ruthless five-setter and his physio massages his flesh into mushy pulp afterwards, which, to be fair, has just happened. 

However, this numbness is different, even from the other times he has lost. It is a kind of numbness that originates deep within his lung tissues, it does not hurt so much as it strangles his breath. Everything feels dull and colourless, the greenness of the grass outside has turned into an ugly ashy colour that is reminiscent of something burned. 

Roger would prefer to feel almost anything else right now. Anger would be nice, exhilarating and almost redemptive in its ferocity of expression. Jealousy would also do, something Roger became acquainted with at an early age in competition, and used to feed his drive to succeed. Regret and self-hatred don’t sound half-bad, even though they are rare for him outside of a few matches but Roger knows he will eventually move on, like the times before. Yet, he fails to feel any of these things, not for Rafa and not for himself. 

What he does feel, throbbing underneath a layer of self-protective anesthesia, is a bone-chilling desolation, like the surreal moments before one runs off a cliff in a nightmare, chased by something unknown but existence-threatening. It is not so much the losing itself that wreaks this kind of havoc, even when it is painful, but losing Roger can withstand, he had to for many years. And it is not even losing to Rafa that makes him feel this way, because they both knew this is the consequence of their association from the very start and promised to try, to separate ego and love, and be happy for one another. It is the theatre of it all that truly nasuates Roger, the pre-match separation, the media red herrings, the cold walls of private elevators with the camera turned off in the middle of the night, the indifferent expressions and muted conversations in public due to the constant fear of exposure, the secrecy and their complacency to such secrecy, as if their love was truly something dirty and shameful.

So it is a sense of utter isolation, he reluctantly diagnoses, to know that no one has ever understood and would ever understand how he feels right now. It has always worked this way: being the world number one meant that loneliness has always extended past tennis, even when there were fellow players and his team. Roger accepted this as a part of the contract: no one could touch him in the rankings, and no one dared to touch him in real life. Until there came another name that dared to chase him in the echelon and a smile so outstretched that it pierced right through his heart, that Roger acknowledged how truly  _ lonely _ he was. Except that person, the only person who has ever offered true empathy, an effortless one even, is now on the other side of the city, in a place with glittery lights and half-consumed champagne bottles, perfectly aware of his pain but unable to even call. 

When Roger receives the texts, from a number that is simply labeled as “R.N” on his phone, he has gotten through most of a Monastrell, the tannic aftertaste burning down his esophagus. He tries to reply, really tries to, but words seem to get farther and farther from him the longer he stares at the keyboard, vision fuzzy but mind painfully clear. 

He types in “congratulations” but deletes it right away, himself disgusted with its performative distance. 

He writes “I am happy for you” with a smiley face, but decides that while it is true, it is not exactly the entirety of his feelings right now.

So he gets a bit bolder and punches in “I need you, come and talk to me right now”. This, while more true and urgent, he ultimately erases because he thinks he has enough decency left not to ruin a night that belongs to Rafa. 

“I love you”. That sort of just slipped out. But now the words are spelled out in the message bar, looking perfectly permanent and wonderfully correct, Roger wants to stare at it for a bit longer. So he stares at it for so long that these three words seem to deconstruct themselves, fall apart into meaningless symbols, and then he deletes them, symbol by symbol.

Nothing seems right after that so Roger decides to give up on replying entirely.

As he continues to nurse what’s left of his wine and stare blankly into the holographic lights of central London from his chair, for a horrible second, he is reminded of a similar evening, with balcony and wine and metropolis aglow, in Shanghai two years ago. He pushes that memory out of his mind instinctively, in a self-preserving manner that one recoils when touching something hot, but the chill of loneliness stays, almost unbearable. 

_ God _ , he wants, needs, to be held so badly,  _ right now _ .

So he takes out his phone, powers it on again, and composes a new message: 

“I know it’s late, but can you please come right now?”

This time, he presses send. 

As his doorbell rings, not more than maybe twenty minutes later, Roger’s heart nearly jumps out of his throat. In the two seconds of silence between the two rings, Roger lets out the breath he has been holding and decides that, if he did not stop the hands of fate in a hotel room like this two years ago, he would not do it now. 

Even with this determination, Roger’s hands tremble a bit as he goes to open the door, as if he knows he is on the edge of something irrecoverable, a cliff that he is standing two steps away from. 

The door opens and Mirka is standing there, still in the dress she wore in the player’s box, front row to his defeat. She is clearly assessing his state, features arranged in a purposefully indecipherable way but still, a hint of tenderness escapes. 

Roger nods to her but does not meet her scrutinizing gaze, too afraid to find out what is written on the report card. Instead, wordlessly, he turns his body halfway so she can come in. 

And she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope I did justice to that biblically historical match with my interpretation around it! 
> 
> I love reading your comments, even when they might be a bit murderous for this chapter. I want to know your reactions!


	10. Melbourne, 2009

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Australia. It's 2009. You know it is going to be iconic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sincerely apologize for the long hiatus. Admittedly, I am inconsistent and get carried away by a new project every five seconds but I have never planned to abandon this fic. Fedal has brought me so much joy, and expanded my world throughout the last year and the least I can do, is to continue writing for them.

The Melbourne sky is a perpetual shade of blue, one that comes out of stock photos and the teenage years of coming-of-age movies. 

The Rod Laver courts are painted that same shade, and it makes Rafa slightly light-headed when he practices serving --- balls bouncing from one shade of blue to another. He decides he will take a break by the 50 count. He has been serving well this tournament anyways.

So he sits on the bench and closes his eyes. He runs through a mental checklist of technique pointers that Toni gave him for the game against Verdasco tomorrow: body serves on bigger points, keep him guessing… Rafa tries to keep his thoughts on the list of strategies, a neutral and impersonal territory, yet his mind races to the outcome of the match. He feels fiery, a burning intuition that tells him his winning streak will continue. Usually, he stops himself from indulging in such premonitions that he perceived as arrogant or callous, but today, under the exceptionally clear sky of the southern hemisphere, Rafa luxuriates in possibility for a second. If he goes as far as he feels like he can go, he will be in the finals, which will be historic. Yet, what renders him more breathless is the fact that if, only if, Roger holds off Roddick tomorrow, the world gets another fedal final. But Rafa cannot care less about what the world gets right now, egoism be damned. What matters is they will get another chance to play each other, a wordless yet the most honest and intimate conversation they can have --- prodding at boundaries and testing out hypotheses. 

If the game goes well, it might even clear the heaviness of the air that has surrounded them since last July, when a series of taciturn injuries and unattributed accusations that were so trivial that Rafa does not remember their causes made the relationship tauter than his racquet’s strings. They barely spoke after Wimbledon, or more precisely, Roger barely acknowledged Rafa’s tentative attempts at communication --- a few unresponded texts, unreturned calls and suddenly the other person felt like a mirage all along, a hallucination conjured up by a desperate mind. Their relationship, something born out of the refreshing natural spontaneity of a July afternoon downpour, has suddenly transformed into the suffocating fog of a fall without rain, dense and humid and impossible to see in all directions. Eventually, with the end of tennis season providing the perfect front for both men’s inability to overcome their egos to reach out, they barely saw each other until they returned home for Christmas. 

There was a call on Christmas eve - one that Roger initiated, after two weeks of curt texts. It was short and they spoke nothing of substance - no resolutions, just uninspired updates and perfunctory greetings. They talked over Skype, retracing the outlines of each other’s face over pixelated images and it suddenly felt very cruel - the whole idea of being separated by cities and mountains when this time last year, they could reach out and touch the lines of the other’s face under the Indian Ocean sky. Yet, none of them voiced these thoughts, as it would seem preposterous and petulant to complain about something that they both agreed to - to spend Christmas apart with their families and reflect on their relationship. Yet, when have people ever graciously accepted suffering in love, even when it is of their own making? They only wanted to be held in their childish and sullen forms. 

Now, as the thirty-degree air glazes upon his skin and the sound of the ocean faint yet audible, everything feels very distant from Christmas. Maybe this is the new light, a renaissance, a fresh beginning, Rafa thinks as he picks up the ball hopper again, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear, and hears his serve whips past him. 

When the practice session comes to a close, Rafa lets Carlos and the accompanying team go back to the hotel first while he carefully organizes his racquet bag, putting everything into its place and takes in a few breaths of solitude. As he walks out of the courts, the sky flushes a gorgeous shade of tangerine, fiery yet serene. 

And out of the backdrop, the silhouette of a lean, familiar figure emerges, a racquet bag slung across one shoulder and an impatient bounce in his steps. Rafa knows in his deepest slumber who this person is - the person he has been waiting to see since last October. Roger stops abruptly when he catches sight of Rafa, who is three feet in front of him, a distance that cannot make up its mind between familiarity and politeness. Rafa thinks he sees Roger’s gentle grin that makes his heart flutter but it quickly disappears into a perfectly polite curve. Rafa’s head stops working for a second but his face smiles an instinctive smile - impossibly wide and entirely too trusting. 

“Hey Rafa. It is good to see you.” Roger starts. His throat is dry and the words sound practised. 

“Sí, me también no? I miss you.” Rafa knows there is a Spanish word in there but he can not care less. 

“How are you doing? How is your family? How was Christmas?” Roger does his best to find his natural, light-hearted affability, the one that has helped through all the interviews and press conferences and party banter with important people.

“Christmas good. Mallorca always very hot and sunny, no? And family good, Maribel give me a knitted scarf, for cold places on the tour, so she will always be close.” Rafa says all at once, words coming in rapid confessional streams, and then he pauses, his tone slower and heavier:” And I... I am not so good Roger. Why do you not respond to my textos?” 

Roger’s face contorts with pain for a second - like a spasm of electricity has just jolted him. He takes a breath. “Look, Rafa, there is…” and he does not go on, he cannot go on. It would all unravel one day, but not now. “Would you walk with me?” That is all he says at the end.

“Sí, claro. Anything wrong? Your parents? They sick?” Rafa’s face is even more animated when concerned, his left eyebrow dances up towards the sky, a searing urgency in his gaze.

“No, no, nothing like that.” Roger responds quickly and he turns his face towards Rafa as they walk vaguely in the direction of the hotel. He takes a long look at Rafa, face inscrutable but eyes unmistakably tender. There is a gravelly edge to his sigh. “It’s just, I have missed you too.”

“And here I am, no? The summer just begins. We have time.” Rafa proclaims happily, intent on ignoring all the inconsistencies in Roger. Let me be happy, for just a moment, his heart pleads with his brain.

Roger suddenly feels like there is no time at all. He glances behind him, the courts empty as the last rays of the sun fades. And he is overwhelmed with the same fateful urge that occupied him to kiss Rafa for the first time in Shanghai. He pushes Rafa to the side wall of the court and seizes his lips there, their racquet bags bumping into each other as he overlaps himself with Rafa. 

It is a risk to kiss out in the open like that, but Roger is not sure he would have survived another second without it.

They don’t kiss for long - the sudden physical contact, although pleasant, is too jarring to sustain. They inhale with large, uneven breathes. They look at each other and Rafa almost laughs, if it was not for how much he wants to violently hurl himself onto Roger. There is almost physical pain in being apart now they have touched each other again.

The entire world narrows down to one mission, one ultimate goal - to get back to the hotel and into whomever’s room is closer. That turns out to be Rafa’s room, as they work their way up the stairs - not daring to take the public elevator to the same floor yet not wanting to wait for a service elevator to be called up. The crisp sound of the door unlocking as the key card is read is heavenly as the two try to muster up the strength to walk inside in a decent and composed state. They don’t succeed but it is alright. 

There is so much to be praised about sex after a long absence. Rafa thinks as he lies, completely spent and pleasantly pliant, on the bed. It is like having sex for the first time. No, it is like seeing the world anew - each sensation, each sound, each sight, each texture is vibrant and surreal, the erotic becomes the exotic. They touch frantically but time seems to slow, they are rough and needy but in every movement, gentleness seeps through, they are literally embedded in each other yet there is an unrelenting urge to be even closer --- the whole experience feels like a psychedelic paradox. If it were not for the excruciating few months of listlessly waiting and wanting, Rafa would almost condone this practice for the future. 

Right now, Roger is still draped over Rafa, one hand tracing Rafa’s arms and the other doodling on his stomach. He kisses whichever part of Rafa’s body that is the closest to his lips, moving from his neck to shoulders to the side of the wonderous biceps - his Rafa, perfect to every inch. Beneath him, the recipient of this worship hums with a quiet satisfaction.  
“Roger” Rafa breaks the languid silence in a sleepy voice.

“Mmhmm?” Roger looks up, hesitant to remove his lips from Rafa’s skin, he has worked his way down to the wrist now. His eyes are wet and shiny and dark.

“What you want to tell me? On the court?” Rafa asks nonchalantly, like an afterthought. On top of him, he feels Roger’s muscles tensing up.

Three beats of silence. Then, Rafa hears Roger say: “It was nothing.” 

After a while, he adds, guilt perceptible in his voice: “We can talk about it after. After the tournament.”

Rafa wants to protest but Roger has started trailing his pecks to his lower abs and reaches one of his hands, the one that has been holding Rafa’s hand, towards his cock. And everything expands and shrinks, grows dim and becomes bright, and Rafa lets himself be swept away by it all.


End file.
